Writer Cut: County to buy Art Van Building

Readers, this is unedited so their may be some typos, but since their is high interest in the article I figured I'd include some of my notes. 

The St. Clair County Board of Commissioners approved spending $560,000 to buy the former Art Van Furniture building in downtown Port Huron at a board meeting with a 5-2 vote Thursday night.

Commissioner Tom Reilly and Bill Gratopp voted against the purchase.

At the start of the meeting, two memorandums were added to the board agenda that detailed the agreement between the board of commissioners and the library, and the parks and recreation department.

More than a dozen members of the community attended the meeting to voice their disapproval of the purchase, including city and township officials. In addition many nurses, from the St. Clair County Health Department spoke against spending such a large amount of money on the property when they haven’t received a raise in year.   

Port Huron city council member Ken Harris spoke against the resolution to but the property.  

“I’m here tonight to speak against the property purchase.” Harris said. “I think this is a step backwards. I don’t see the advantages of having another parking structure.”

“Right now you don’t know that the money will be used for what it was being dedicated for,” Greenwood Township Supervisor Terry Gill said. “I don’t think you should be doing that.”

“I would like to know, what’s the rush? The first I heard about it was Wednesday in the paper. The mileages are coming up,” Lynn Township board member Juanita Hunter said. “It feels like this is being shoved down our throats.”

After each person spoke out against buying the Art Van building there was a loud applause from the audience.  After the purchase was approved many people attending the meeting walked out.

Before the meeting St. Clair County Library System Director Allison Arnold expressed her support of the property purchase.

“We’re looking at the future of the library,” Arnold said. “We know there is a need to update our building.”

Library board president Arnold Larson said that if the purchase is not used for library funds, it will serve just as a five or six years, and essentially is a fund transfer. He spoke in the meeting in favor of the purchase.  

“The St. Clair County Library System Board of Trustees is exploring the possible expansion of the main branch facility. If constructed, it is likely that an expanded or new facility will be located on the same block that the main branch now occupies,” the memorandum signed by Larson said.

“It is anticipated that if the Library expands or constructs a new main branch, that existing parking will be displaced,” the memorandum continued. 

The memorandum said the library would commit up to $200,000 to the purchase and if the library didn’t use it within 10 years it would be taken back. Commissioner Howard Heidemann said it was important to realize the money would be paid back if it was not used. 

County chairman Jeff Bohm had a presentation that explained how the property was on sale for $1.2 million three years ago and the board decided to buy the property after price for the property was lowered.    

He said the county had an independent specialist look into the cost of the building.  

“We like the property because of the way it fits into the county’s campus,” Bohm said.

Bohm said parking issues in downtown Port Huron have been well documented. He said the city of Port Huron has not made a firm commitment to using the property but said but they do have interest and added library has been in discussion with the board for a while on the subject.

“I’m not going to speak for them for their specific plans because they don’t have them honed in yet,” Bohm said.

Other members of the board offered support for the property purchase and said echoed that the purchase was approved by the library and parks and recreation. The decision to purchase the property was moved around on the agenda several times to allow for public discussion before the board voted on the resolution.

“What we have before us tonight is signed agreement with the library board and parks and recreation to move forward,” Commissioner Karl Tomion said.

Later, Tomion said a lot of people were getting the wrong impression were the county was getting the money for the purchase.

“We’re not raiding their funds,” Tomion said  

“The millage money is in question will be used for the library,” Commissioner David Rushing said. “There are a lot of legitimate concerns brought up tonight.

“I have reservations on this but I will be supportive,” Rushing said.   

Two commissioners spoke against the resolution, Tom Reilly said he could not support the project because of the way purchase was handled.

Commissioner Bill Gratopp said he could not support it the purchase because he ran for election on the promise of creating more public parks in his district. He said he believed the money was better used by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Before the board voted on the resolution Bohm said the board has discussed the purchase at length in workshops and with the public. He said the board have discussed the purchase for three years and the best time to act now.